Awarding Hosting Of 2022 World Cup To Qatar “A Mistake”- Blatter

The former FIFA president, Josep Sepp Blatter has described the decision to award Qatar with the 2022 World Cup as a “mistake”.

In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, the 86-year-old, who was FIFA president when Qatar was awarded the 2020 World Cup hosting rights in 2010, said he had voted for the United States to host this year’s tournament.

“The choice of Qatar was a mistake. At the time, we actually agreed in the executive committee that Russia should get the 2018 World Cup and the USA should get it in 2022,” he said.

“It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other.”

Asked why Qatar was a “bad choice”, Blatter said: “It’s too small a country. Football and the World Cup are too big for that.”

Blatter also blamed Michel Platini, the former UEFA president, for allowing the tournament to be handed to the Gulf state.

He alleged that Platini was instrumental in directing four votes from European countries to Qatar, following pressure from Nicolas Sarkozy, the then president of France.